


Safehouse V

by TheFierceBeast, VioletSmith



Series: Safehouse [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Healing, Angel Wings, Body Horror, Castiel in Panties, Crowley and Feelings, Crowley's True Form, Demon True Forms, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Metaphysical Sex, Other, Self-Acceptance, Soul Bond, True Forms, Trust, Wing Kink, canon compliant mentions of torture, crowstiel, gender neutral Castiel, look at their fucking love connection, masochist crowley, otherworldly beauty, slight sadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 19:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10600494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFierceBeast/pseuds/TheFierceBeast, https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletSmith/pseuds/VioletSmith
Summary: When Crowley sets out to get Castiel into some silky little panties, things don't turn out quite the way he expects.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's all pretty mild, but warnings for Crowley's post-torture trueform, mentions of torture in Hell, mentions of Crowley under Lucifer's control.

It swirls about Castiel's ankles, soft and barely-there on the sparse dark leg hair. It's a pleasant sensation, especially when walking. So much so that he leaves his feet bare, the better to feel it, when he flies to Crowley's house. Even the beating of his wings is newly sensuous, the motion stirring the pale pink fabric, making it flutter against his skin like downy feathers. The house's protective magic has long been relaxed enough to allow him to fly in rather than having to walk up the long driveway, and so he appears now in the wood-floored sitting room, with its thick rug that Castiel likes to scrunch between his bare toes and its wide, open fire that never seems to die out. The room where he senses Crowley's presence. He can follow it, now, so clearly through the silvery thread of connection between them.  
  
They haven't arranged to meet, and Castiel is somewhat apprehensive that Crowley will be otherwise occupied. He is, as he likes to remind people, a very busy man. But he has told Castiel on more than one occasion to visit whenever he pleases. Castiel smoothes down the petal coloured material, and turns to face him.  
  
Crowley is already looking at him, and he looks startled. Surely, Castiel thinks, he must have at least sensed his approach. Although - he takes in the details of the room, the papers littering the wide leather couch, the pen still poised in Crowley's hand, the open packet of something next to a mug on the side table - perhaps Crowley was too engrossed in whatever he was doing to notice. Now, though, Crowley clears his throat softly, lifts his chin and regards Castiel with serious eyes. "Feathers. Well, this is a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe the honour?"  
Castiel fidgets with the dress where it falls from his hips. "Is this a bad time? You seem busy."  
"Work." Crowley says. His lip curls, and with one hand he sweeps the stack of papers off the couch. Castiel watches as they skid on the polished floor, fluttering in disarray. "Does that answer your question?"  
Castiel smiles, and radiates approval through the link between them. "You said I should visit any time I wanted." He takes a slow step closer. The long, very pale pink dress sways softly as he moves. "And I wanted to try..." He gestures at the dress.  
Crowley raises his eyebrows, sucks in his cheeks like he's carefully considering the creature before him. "New frock, darling? It suits you." He pats the seat beside him. "Have to say, I'm a little surprised to see you out of that coat you're so fond of- not that I don't approve. What's prompted the makeover?"  
  
Castiel feels something relax inside him that he hadn't realised was tense. He doesn't feel self-conscious in these more than any other clothes, but he had worried that it would somehow change the way Crowley treated him. He feels sure it would with Dean, who has very human views on gender and very Dean views on clothing. Castiel goes to sit beside Crowley. The dress goes taut across his belly as he sits - it's a very different sensation to his usual shirt and jacket. "I liked looking at the clothes you showed me," he confesses. "I keep thinking about it. In previous vessels, I wore a variety of clothing. Always what was most innocuous, so that I could blend in and not be noticed."  
"Pfft." Crowley makes a dismissive noise. His hand falls, easily between them so the backs of his fingers are resting against Castiel's thigh, warm through the thin fabric. It's not a loaded touch. It's comfortable. And Castiel marvels that this contact comes so easily now. "Blending in is for ugly people." His smirk is teasing.  
"You know far more about human clothing than me. But I liked this. It feels nice." Cool and watery-smooth against the skin. Castiel can't seem to stop touching it, feeling the planes of his body through it. He feels as if he has never inhabited his vessel so utterly - even when he was human.  
Crowley's eyes follow his movements. "May I?" One hand hovers, above Castiel's thigh.  
Castiel nods. Crowley's touch is always welcome, but right now he wants it, he _covets_. The dress he's wearing is beautiful, and he feels beautiful in it. He wants Crowley's big hands all over him, wants their warmth through the slippery fabric.  
He pauses, static, as a hand alights, stroking so gently it's barely a touch at all. Crowley's hands may be large, strong, but they're also well-kept, cared for and smooth enough that his fingertips slip easily over the soft stuff of the dress, no catch or drag. "Silk chiffon. It's very well-cut. A good fit. I commend your taste, darling. I don't think I've ever seen those eyes look so blue."  
Castiel's blue eyes find Crowley's hazel ones and get lost there a while. "The vessel recognises you," he murmurs. "It likes your hands on it."  
"Well, there's a coincidence." Crowley traces a light path, up the crease of Castiel's thigh, across the elegant ridge of one hipbone. "My hands like being on it. On _you_..." He hesitates, thumb stroking Castiel's waist through filmy silk. "Angel, are you going commando under this thing?"  
_Going commando_. Castiel knows the expression. It's one he's heard Dean use on more than one occasion. "Jimmy's underwear didn't seem appropriate," he admits. And, truthfully, he likes the sensation of it. Airy and light, like flying. The vessel's testicles are velvety soft between his slightly parted thighs, the soft penis resting placidly above them. Unobtrusive. Castiel likes to touch and investigate his vessel's genitals when they are like this - gentle and unresponsive - almost more than he does when they're needy and wanting, tumescent. He wonders if Crowley would touch him like that, if he asked.  
Crowley's voice rumbles, low, answering Castiel's previous question. "Absolutely. Shorts would completely spoil the line." One palm rests hot, heavy, at the curve of Castiel's waist. Crowley looks fascinated. As if he's looking at Castiel's vessel through new eyes. Mapping it out with his hands anew, this unfamiliar, softer territory. "You'd need something bespoke under a dress like this. Wherever did you come by it?"  
Castiel can't help leaning into his touch. "I made it," he says. "I saw a human wearing something like it, once. I wanted it." So he had willed it into being. Hardly a complicated use of his not-inconsiderable power. "I wanted... I wanted to surprise you."  
The sudden swell of Crowley's aura is a surprise too, rushing Castiel with a jumble of emotion: to see Castiel like this was unexpected, and Crowley is _proud_ of him, he _approves_. His tone is thoughtful. "Mission adeptly accomplished. You wanted it, so you conjured it up. Bravo, love." The hand on Castiel's waist circles. Climbs to follow the plunge of neckline, a single fingertip trailing along the smooth skin of Castiel's vessel's chest. Dipping just beneath one wide shoulder strap where the fabric is gathered in soft pleats.  
Crowley's touches are soothing. Soporific. "Do you ever wear things like this?" Castiel murmurs. He tries to imagine Crowley in such a gentle colour, and can't quite picture it.  
"In this vessel?" Crowley pulls back a little, to look at him. One eyebrow quirked in amusement. "Specifically pastel evening wear, or ladies clothing in general?"  
"Ladies clothing in general." It feels strange to call it that. Castiel is not a lady, and the phrase sits uneasily in his stomach, as if he's stealing the right to wear these clothes.  
"I've not been a man in nearly four centuries." Crowley's voice buzzes, husky and utterly masculine. "But old habits die very hard, darling. I imagine it's a much different ball game for one who was not born human." His fingers card gently through the mess of Castiel's hair, stroke his bare shoulder; Crowley can surely sense his unease. "So... I don't wear pretty things often. But I've tried everything more than once. And enjoyed it."  
Castiel latches onto this thought. "What did you enjoy most?" he demands. "What was your favourite?" In his true form Castiel wears no outer covering. Angels in Heaven do not know modesty or shame, and the environment is perfectly suited for them. There is no need of protection from cold or heat. Castiel is genderless, there, and his sense of himself remains so - no matter what sort of vessel he wears. Even this vessel, which has become so much _his_ that it is starting to form part of his identity.  
"I like..." Crowley pauses. Seems to gather his thoughts, stroking Castiel's hair like he strokes their tentative connection when they're apart: Castiel wonders, suddenly, if it's meant as a comfort to him or to Crowley. "Structure." Crowley says, finally. Quietly. "We have so much in common it's rather ironic. But I'm not a wild thing like you, Castiel. You, rebel, born into regiment. I'm the opposite. Thrust into chaos when all I wanted - all I want - is order." He presses an absent kiss to Castiel's temple. "You realise that if you repeat this to anyone I'm going to have to kill you?" It's a joke, but only just. "Of course, order isn't necessarily the same thing as following all the rules. Especially if they're stupid rules." He runs a warm palm down the length of one bare arm, further, along Castiel's thigh. "What do I enjoy most? I like things well-made. A chair, a gun, a paddle, a dress - quality shows. Well-fitting. Good materials. I like..." His voice slinks lower. "I like to feel contained. Restrained. Armoured."  
  
Castiel can certainly understand the desire for order. The human world is a chaos of individuality; confusing and anchorless, almost painful for creatures like Castiel who had previously only known the certainty of obedience and uniformity. But... "I like soft things," Castiel says, wistful, smoothing the fabric of his skirt. "Floaty. It pleases me." Crowley being restrained, however. That is a remarkably enticing idea. "Does the idea of restraint not trouble you? After my brother..." Castiel allows the sentence to go unfinished. He knows that his experience with Lucifer is only the last in a long line of things that might serve to make Crowley wary of containment.  
Next to him, Crowley tenses, very slightly. An arm snakes around Castiel's waist, draws him closer. "It's not the same kind of restraint." Crowley whispers. "When you hold me down... when you hurt me..." They are close, in every way. The metaphysical connection between them blooms with desire, fulfilment. "When he..." Crowley's voice trails off. The singing connection suddenly dies, empty blank space as if some things Crowley can't bear to share even with Castiel.  
It's understandable. Castiel doesn't want to pry, to push Crowley for more than he's prepared to give. He touches a finger to one of Crowley's fingers and feels the atoms on the surface of their skin intermingle. "You're safe with me." It is the only promise he can make.  
"I can look after myself." Crowley mutters. His hand encircles Castiel's wrist. "If I had any doubts, angel, do you think I would ever have invited you here?"  
"I know you wouldn't." It's what confused Castiel so much at first. That Crowley could have such trust in him. In anyone, after all that had been done to him.  
"But here you are." Crowley's eyes gleam, catching the firelight. He grips Castiel's jaw, gently, in one hand. "He wore this face - _your_ face - it's true. But he looked nothing like you. Two things can be the same, but very different indeed. The same goes for containment. Imprisonment is a world away from security, darling."  
Castiel nods. He thinks he's beginning to understand. And he wants to give that to Crowley, that security. "I want to give you as much pleasure as you've given me." He turns and kisses Crowley's hand, a dry press of lips to skin. Between them, the thread of his grace crackles and sparks like a live wire.  
And Crowley smiles, slow and sweet, showing perfect white teeth. "You already do, pet. But I'll never turn down more. And you in that pretty frock is certainly an unexpected treat. How about we go upstairs? I've something to show you and now may be the time."  
  
Crowley's bedroom is fast becoming Castiel's favourite room in the house - beating even the bathroom with its huge, sunken tub that Castiel could lounge in for _months_. The bedroom is so private, so much a part of Crowley. It feels like being inside him. As if the room is a heart, a space normally locked away inside Crowley's chest, and it pries him open every time to allow someone into it. Castiel nods. "Yes, Crowley."  
But when Castiel follows him, winding through the hushed dark corridors of the house, that smell of centuries and beeswax polish and the faint tang of heated metal, it's not the bedroom he's led to. "Go on. Take a look." The figures in the tapestries that adorn the dressing room seem to watch Castiel with mild blank eyes as he stands in front of the massive wardrobe.  
Castiel isn't sure what he's supposed to be looking for as he eases open the heavy wooden doors. Inside, the wardrobe is hung with clothes in an array of colours and fabrics, and Castiel reaches in to touch them, run his hands over them, feeling the different textures against his skin. "These are yours?"  
He feels Crowley, solid and warm, draw close behind him. Chest pressed to Castiel's back as he reaches around him. Crowley's voice buzzes against his neck. "Some of them are yours. If you want." One hand separates off a section of rail, softer than the rest in both texture and hue. "I took the liberty when you seemed so taken with some of my old rags. Just in case. And here." He reaches to pull open a deep drawer. The movement presses their bodies together. Inside the drawer is folded tissue paper. More chiffon, silk, satin in delicate sugar shades.  
Castiel picks one of the items up between two fingers. It is flimsy, almost weightless. Crowley's house is lit from some invisible source which seems to mimic the light of hidden, flickering candles - but even in the gentle not-quite-dimness, Castiel can see through the dove grey fabric to the wardrobe behind. He touches a fat satin bow at the waistband. It's exquisite. All watery soft and smooth. Castiel covets.  
"Do you approve?" Crowley's essence and the proximity of his vessel mingle, soaking Castiel in warmth that seeps into the edges of him. "It feels like you do." One arm wraps around Castiel's waist, cradling it through flimsy pink chiffon.  
"I approve." Castiel spills electric blue approval into the link between them, makes it vivid enough that Crowley's breath catches in his throat. "This is for me?" People don't tend to give gifts to Castiel. Perhaps they don't see the point of it.  
"Anything in there that fits you is yours. Take whatever you like, whenever you like. Of course," Castiel feels his smile as a ripple through the veil of their connection, "if you ever want to model anything for me, I certainly won't be complaining."  
Castiel can't even pretend to be patient. "Can I try it now?" He wants to feel the softness of it against the vessel's skin. He wants to feel it even on his true self, without the flesh barrier getting in the way. But his angelic body is immense - there's no way this slip of insubstantial stuff would fit on him.  
"Nothing would please me more." Castiel feels Crowley brush a kiss to the nape of his neck before he steps back.  
Castiel reaches for the zip at the back of his dress, but doesn't quite get to it before Crowley does. He undoes the clasp at the top with fingers that never fumble, and slides the zip down the long line of Castiel's back. With the slightest shimmy the dress falls to the floor, pooling around Castiel's feet like pale pink water.  
When Castiel turns around, Crowley is sucking on his lower lip, regarding Castiel thoughtfully. A lazy swell of arousal swirls from him. "Allow me?" Smoky-hot voice. Crowley takes the silk scrap from Castiel's hands. Kneels at his feet. A hand partly circles one ankle, indicating Castiel should lift his foot: he braces his own hands against Crowley's shoulders for balance, steps dutifully into first one, then the other, leg hole. The backs of Crowley's fingers brush his thighs as Crowley draws the garment slowly up Castiel's legs.  
Castiel touches Crowley's cheek with the back of one hand. The sight of the demon on his knees stirs something in Castiel, makes him pause. And though the vessel does not breathe, the angel inside it inhales smoky light, exhales adoration.  
The underwear feels like something barely-there on his skin. It feels like Castiel's wings - private, not usually exposed. Downy and soft. "Thank you."  
  
Crowley nods. Doesn't stand. His eyes, gazing up at Castiel, look big, very round. "It's my pleasure, angel." He wets his lips with the point of his tongue. "You look irresistible. And I'm not terribly good at resisting temptation at the best of times." His hands smooth down the thighs of his suit pants. "Would you like to see how you look?"  
_I can already see it in your face_ , Castiel wants to say, but he nods anyway. Finds it almost impossible to tear his eyes away from Crowley's. Crowley is staring up at him with the kind of reverence Castiel hasn't known since his first fall.  
It's another minute or so before Crowley reaches up to take his hand, kisses his knuckles gently, before standing again. He brushes down the knees of his trousers, although the house is dust-free.  
The wardrobe has double doors: the second opens onto a full length mirror, beveled on the edges and foxed with age. Crowley stands behind him, a dark figure at his shoulder.  
  
It's a fascinating sight. The garment clings to Castiel's narrow hips, just barely covering the curve of his rear. His penis is soft, and almost entirely hidden by the loose folds of smoky fabric. The bow - silky smooth, a sensation Castiel could lose himself in - is on the back, at the top. It feels like being held and fondled in these most intimate places by something insubstantial. The way Castiel imagines Crowley's smoke would feel.  
Hands alight, barely there, on his hips. "Perfectly fitting. Of course. Do they feel as exquisite as they look?" Castiel meets Crowley's gaze in the shadowy mirror. He looks mesmerised.  
"They feel like my wings," Castiel says. And then realises he's not entirely sure Crowley will understand what he means by that. "I like it."  
"I hope you'll show me, one day. If you want to. If you can." Fingertips ghost along the edges of the gauzy fabric, almost but not quite touching.  
Crowley is standing where they would be, if manifested physically. Castiel wonders if he would touch them, get his hands deep in the dark feathers, leave them filthy with demon. So that any angel Castiel encountered would know instantly that he'd been _consorting_ with one of them. If the silvery, slippery spill of grace he'd left in Crowley didn't give it away first. "You would like to see them?" Castiel wonders if he could show Crowley without harming him. Castiel's body, his real body, is dangerous. The instinct to hide it is deeply ingrained.  
"I want every part of you." And Castiel can feel it. The _want_ , greedy and yearning. Crowley is lying about being unable to resist temptation: it must be taking considerable effort from him not to touch.  
The feeling is mutual, at least as far as the desire to witness Crowley's real self is concerned. Castiel wants to take ownership of it, to touch the raw, broken creature with the infinite gentleness of his wings and know that it belongs to him. Slowly, deliberately, he leans back into Crowley, until their vessels are touching along the entire length of their bodies. Crowley's clothing feels strangely sensuous against Castiel's almost-bare skin. "Every part of me is yours, demon," Castiel rumbles.  
In response, a touch of lips, soft and careful: the side of his neck, moving across his bare shoulder, down the blade. Following an imagined path of wings. The touch of Crowley's tongue is hot, licking like flame, tracing a divine path. His hands settle chastely at Castiel's waist, as if he's afraid to touch.  
Castiel's wings tingle with phantom sensation, and his mind is full of the obscenity, the _blasphemy_ of it; of the idea of a demon putting its mouth upon them. They twitch and quiver on another plane of existence - restless with the thought of it. The magical candlelight gutters, as if fanned by something that isn't there. They are that close to physicality.  
"Show me, angel." Crowley's whisper is a touch as delicate, as intimate, as the fabric that barely clothes Castiel's vessel. "I promise I won't tell."  
Castiel can't deny him anything. Not even this. He turns in Crowley's arms, staying close enough that the front of the whisper-light underwear is crushed against the front of Crowley's suit. "Alright," Castiel says, and fits the palm of his hand over Crowley's eyes. He leans close, his mouth brushing Crowley's ear when he murmurs. "Tell me if you feel any pain. If it's safe, I'll let you look." It should be. It should. But Castiel is careful - the cost of a mistake is too high.  
  
He knows Crowley feels it when it happens, from the way he stiffens in Castiel's arms. And by the time Castiel's wings are fully manifested in this plane, Crowley is trembling. "Are you okay?" Castiel asks him, concerned.  
Crowley nods, dumbly. Licks his lips. Brings a hand up to cover Castiel's hand, to pull it away from his face. When Castiel allows his arm to drop, Crowley's eyes are still closed, lips forming silent words as if he's praying. His arms loop around Castiel's neck, searching. Fingers sinking into the soft down between Castiel's shoulder blades.  
It's awkward like this. His wings aren't made for this plane, this vessel; too huge and unwieldy, defying nature. And Castiel knows, Crowley has only seen echoes before, shadows. When they fought over the seal: Castiel recalls Crowley's expression, the curiosity and fascination on his face, even as he faced a deadly opponent.  
And it's so wrong. Such an abomination to allow this, to allow a demon to put its hands on something so sacred. But the wrongness only seems to excite Castiel more. He feels liberated. Unfolding parts of himself that have always been hidden and shameful. He's brimming with love - angelic love, pure and glorious, the blinding sort that brings men to their knees in supplication. The places where Crowley is touching him ache so sweetly. His wings flutter, they press back greedily into that touch. "Crowley," Castiel moans, and puts his lips against Crowley's, kissing him slow and fierce. Crowley's fingers burrow, massaging into the sleek inky depths of feather, seeking the roots. Crowley groans, his tongue stroking against Castiel's, the strange animal ballet of these vessels. They're pressed as close as can be: Castiel can feel every atom of Crowley's arousal, supernatural and physical. His vessel rocks against Castiel's, involuntary.  
And Castiel makes an inhuman sound when Crowley grasps hold of the roots of the feathers. A sound so close to his true voice that Crowley flinches from it, and cries out quietly. Castiel makes softer, soothing sounds, not trusting himself to speak right now. He nuzzles at Crowley's temple in apology, trailing kisses along his cheekbone, Shuddering as Crowley's fingertips circle. Crowley still hasn't opened his eyes. "Don't be quiet on my account, love. Tell me your secrets, tell me what you want." The thread between them has flattened out, thinned, covering them like mercury in the proximity of Castiel's true nature. Crowley opens his eyes. His mouth drops open, too, with a tiny soft gasp. A drop of blood wells, immediately, at the corner of one eye, tracking a scarlet path down his cheek.  
  
Castiel licks the red drop from Crowley's skin. The demon blood burns in his throat like Crowley's whisky, leaves him dizzy. Tipsy, almost, even from such a minute quantity. "It's harming you," he says, regretfully. "We should stop."  
"No." Crowley blinks, as if to clear his vision: it serves only to stimulate the flow. "I've suffered worse for less." His voice sounds hoarse, ruined. "I want this. You can break me. Break me and then put me back together."  
Castiel rubs his thumb under Crowley's eye, smudging the trace of red still left on the skin. Crowley's eyes are unnaturally bright, the pupils vanished into pinpricks. He's overwhelmed with awe - Castiel can feel it through the link, the sort of ecstasy usually only attained by prophets and saints of the Lord. "You could lose your sight." Castiel's wings curl around them both protectively.  
"You can fix me afterwards." He sounds breathless. Drugged. Reckless with desire. It's a potent feeling, one that Castiel has to try hard not to just give in to. Crowley may be resilient, but his human vessel has limits, even right now, when it's curling so beguiling close beneath Castiel's brazenly revealed wings.  
When Crowley turns his face into the feathers, rapturous, they leave tiny welts against his skin. It doesn't seem to deter him. He inhales against them, as if he wants to breathe them into his body. Castiel kisses each of the marks away, healing them. Listens to Crowley moan, low in his throat. His fingers fumble at his own shirt buttons - Castiel had interrupted him in a rare moment of undress, his jacket and tie already absent. His bared chest heaves. The wake of Castiel's touch looks like flagellation.  
"I like your vessel. I won't maim it." Pain is one thing. Even damage, scarring... but this is too destructive. Crowley's eyes are still bleeding. Reluctantly, slowly, Castiel bids his wings to start to fade. "The human form is too sensitive," he tells Crowley.  
"Wait." The shimmering cobweb of grace-essence draws tighter around them, so interwoven in the moment that Castiel feels like he couldn't disentangle himself from the demon in his arms if he tried. It feels as if Crowley is trying to hold him, halt him, the burnt out husk of his soul refusing to relinquish what's so lately been revealed to him. Castiel wonders if any demon has set eyes on an angel's true face and lived. Then Crowley's mouth opens and without warning he is tumbling out of his vessel in a riot of crimson.  
  
Caught off-guard, Castiel catches the vessel as it begins to crumple, levitating it to lie on the floor a little way away. It would be disconcerting to see the familiar face so lifeless, if not for the difference between the empty vessel and the way it usually appears - full of life, full of _Crowley,_ glittering from within and spilling ashy demon from all the edges of itself. Now all of that essence is concentrated in the blood red smoke that Castiel can't help running his fingers through, fanning the tips of newly solid feathers through. He wants to _breathe_ Crowley. To take him into his lungs and seal him there, in those small cavities within his vessel's chest. The skin of his vessel thrills to it: the way Crowley is all over him, everywhere at once, flattening to his every plane. Smoke ruffles his hair. Ripples through his wings, teasing the feathers apart, dry and insubstantial. And Castiel's senses are full of him, the scent of myrrh and sulphur and charred stone catching in his throat.  
  
Communication is much easier in this state. They speak as fire speaks - consuming, without words but with many tongues; and understand as water understands - with water's perfect clarity. Castiel feels Crowley's grace-drunk, deformed version of worship written all over his skin, in the spaces between his feathers. _Adored,_ Castiel communicates. _Desired. Adulated._  
Crowley billows, preens, clings once more, rolling over Castiel's vessel, his wings, in waves as if tasting him with every inch of his being. His want is an opaque weight: hungry to take, but also to give. Castiel holds out a hand and the smoke rushes around it. An incomparable sensation, but not one to close fingers around, not one to hold. It's like being loved by a storm. _I wish I could hold you_. Castiel isn't sure if it's a thought or speech, his own or Crowley's. And then the tornado of him is withdrawing, rushing to the spot where Crowley's empty vessel lies. Castiel thinks he must be re-inhabiting his vessel, but instead the smoke consolidates, into a small dark figure, crouching.  
  
"Beautiful, isn't he?" The demon's voice is a serrated drag. It sounds like metal twisting, like a blade through bone. One long, clawed hand strokes the vessels cheek tenderly.  
Castiel is so stunned that it takes him a moment to form words again. "You..." The demon is hunched over, as if to hide itself, but there is no mistaking Crowley's true physical form. Castiel has only glimpsed it briefly through the veil of another dimension of existence, but the sight is branded into his memory. This is his lover. Without the covering of human flesh he normally wears, without even clothes - not even what little Castiel is wearing. "I... Yes. Yes, he is beautiful." Castiel cannot take his eyes away from the figure. Unbidden, his wings are reaching to touch it. He reins them back. "As are you."  
A harsh sound. Crowley barking a laugh. His hand travels the length of that familiar torso, caressing fondly. "So soft." There is nothing soft about the demon. It’s all angles, sharp and brittle, folded in upon itself so that it's difficult for Castiel to make sense of what he's seeing. No flesh, no blood. Crowley's skin is blackened, charred to the bone. He turns his head, face still mostly hidden, and Castiel sees the wet red gleam of his eyes. "So fragile. But you can't spoil what's already destroyed, can you, pet?"  
Castiel does not say that he wants to spoil this creature in the human sense of the word, to mean _overindulge_. "You don't seem destroyed," he offers instead. Indeed, Crowley is the very model of survival at any cost.  
Another grating laugh. " _Reimagined_ then, perhaps? I do admit, it was one _Hell_ of an extreme makeover." It's strange, hearing Crowley's familiar turn of phrase in that tearing voice. Surreal, and yet oddly like Castiel has known this part of him all along. He raises his chin and Castiel can see a thin mouth, full of blackened teeth, broken to points, and Castiel thinks of Crowley's familiar human smile, white and even. The red of his gaze is not the familiar, burning scarlet of a crossroads demon. His eyes bulge from lidless sockets, blank and bleeding like skinned tomatoes. If Castiel were human, he thinks, it would take his breath away.  
"Come here," he says, a hand held out, beckoning with his vessel and his grace. He doesn't approach the demon - wants it to come to him of its own volition, to not be frightened back into one of its more familiar forms.  
Crowley inclines his head, a serpentine motion. His human face is so expressive, but his true face has so little left of muscle and flesh that expression is impeded. It makes no difference between them: his emotion travels the shivering silver thread that tethers them strong as ever; reticence, wariness, apprehension. He stands slowly, unfolding mummified limbs in a soft drift of ash. Each bone looks broken, mended at strange angles, full of protruding shards, hands and feet backwards like a shuck. In spite of it all, he retains a weird kind of grace.  
"Here," Castiel says, again, gesturing at the floor immediately at his feet. "Come closer. I want to see you, Crowley." He wants to touch him. To wrap him up in soft feathers and grace.  
Crowley straightens. Devoid of much flesh, his body appears androgynous. He stands a few inches shorter than his favourite vessel. The thread between them throbs. Anxiety and the barest colour of longing. None of the vibrant desire and arousal and confidence of twenty minutes ago. Still - Crowley takes a step towards him.  
"That's it," Castiel coaxes. His wings twitch, wanting. "Let me... let me touch you like this. I want to. I've wanted for so long..."  
Suspicion. "I understand wanting to see. Wanting every little bit..." The nuance is gone from his words, the demon's harsh voice flattening them to blunt instruments. "To touch..." His voice cracks as he lowers it. "Why would you want that, angel? You can have me in any form."  
Castiel struggles for the language to explain it. "Because." Castiel's eyes are locked with Crowley's, pleading with him to understand. "Because this feels like the first time you've been truly naked in front of me." He can't help moving closer, reaching out a hand. "I want to touch you with no barriers between us."  
Grating whisper. "When I'm ill equipped to please you. Ironic, isn't it." The first touch of his hand is a little shock, static running between them.  
  
Crowley seems very small like this, but behind his eyes is all the pride and defiance, all the power Castiel is used to. His skin is rough. Castiel runs his hand over it as lightly as he can. "You always please me. I've told you that before."  
Crowley snorts. An ugly, abrasive sound. His essence conveys all the emotion his bleeding eyes cannot. "You're so beautiful, Castiel. Exquisite in every way. So _powerful_." The first little pulse of lust spikes through to Castiel's awareness, chased by frustration.  
Crowley enjoys Castiel's power. It's very clear, whenever they lie together. He craves the sensation of being overpowered by Castiel. "I find you beautiful, Crowley," Castiel says, with all the quiet authority an angel of the Lord can muster. He dips his wings, brushes the very edges softly against the brutally damaged surface of Crowley's body. Crowley jerks at the touch, and Castiel stops instantly - "Am I hurting you?"  
"No." He's lying. "I - yes. It doesn't matter. Angel..." He turns his head. Unable, Castiel realises, to close his eyes. Bitterness and frustration, pride and distress flood from him. His sharp teeth squeak as he grits them. "I'm not ashamed of what I am. Not now. But you shouldn't... touch me, like this. I'm... unclean. And I don't mean in the sexy way."  
"I know." Castiel trails black feathers down Crowley's twisted body. He follows them with his hands - a strange kind of benediction. "I can feel it on you. The corruption." Slick and clinging, like an oilspill.  
"If you don't like my choice of cologne, you just have to say so, darling." It sounds absurd, now, here, coming from that ruined mouth. Crowley shivers beneath his hands. Wracked between the desire to pull closer and the instinct to shy away.  
"I like you. All of you. The rot and ruin, the stink of hellfire. Hell cannot keep you from me." Castiel bends, the impossible arches of his wings encircling them, and touches his lips to Crowley's body.  
Beneath him, Crowley stiffens. The hard planes of his limbs freeze, contorted. "Cas. Don't." But his essence clings desperately as ever, cleaving to Castiel's grace. Castiel doesn't listen. He touches his mouth to the blackened, brutalised body of his demon, his lover. Drops kisses onto his skin like rain onto drought-parched earth. "You shouldn't do this." Crowley arches his neck, as once he'd bare soft flesh to Castiel's mouth. His skin tastes like scorched metal now, acrid and sharp. He carries the choking stench of profanity, of sulphur and iron and spoiling blood. Castiel drinks it in.  
"Don't tell me not to." Castiel doesn't want to stop this, ever. His wings are trembling like aspen trees in some invisible breeze. He lifts Crowley's face and the kisses the wreck of his mouth and Crowley groans, the closest sound to his human voice Castiel has heard from him. Long fingers plunge into Castiel's hair, hard and unfamiliar, jointed in unexpected places. He realises that what he took for claws are exposed ends of bone, pointed and raw. They feel good, combing across his scalp.  
Bits of Castiel are leaking out of his vessel, blinding white. Crowley twists in Castiel's arms and lets out small gargled cries of agony - but still he clings, refusing to let go. Castiel tries to shield him, to protect him from the worst of it. This is a creature constructed out of pain; Castiel doesn't know how to be near him without adding to that torment. He tries to hold himself in, but the place where the wings are manifesting is not grace-tight, and some of him is bound to escape. Where it comes into contact with the demon, steam hisses up in curtains, the joining point of sanctity and profanity. Castiel breathes the fragrance of incense, dark and tarry, too strong to be truly pleasant but still a far cry from rotting blood. Crowley's hide steams too, flaking to ashes. And it _is_ less shocking to witness upon a creature made for suffering than when his vessel's pristine flesh is marred. It shouldn't be so. It's unfair. Castiel holds him close, and feels Crowley's fingers slip back into the thick inky feathers of his wings. It's a shock, to be touched there - Castiel hasn't had nearly enough time to get used to it. It's been years since he's been close enough to one of his own kind to allow this sort of liberty. And now - this is different to a moment ago. Crowley no longer filtered through the soft focus of his vessel. The demon is unyielding as flint, as metal hardened by flame. Forged. Brittle, but impossible to destroy completely, no delicate flesh to tear and mar. He presses close. It feels like embracing burning bones, but his hands petting through Castiel's wings, between his shoulder blades, are sinful delight.  
Castiel feels the slickness of sin start to taint him. It's thrilling and cloying all at once, makes him want to cough it out. And he knows Crowley is changing him, as surely as he has changed Crowley, left his mark in him. Castiel gathers Crowley into his arms, lifts him as easily as if he were made of feathers. He tries to take care not to jostle Crowley, to cradle him close. When Castiel speaks, he's unsure what language his mouth calls up. "Love," he says. "Hold fast to me." His wings crack, and in an instant they are standing in Crowley's bedroom, in front of his opulent four poster bed.  
"Cas." In that one word Crowley speaks volumes. His hands clasp Castiel's hands, but he takes a step back, eyeing the bed - _his_ bed - with its rich red throw and soft white sheets. Everything in him says _not here_. Says, _this isn't a place for me now_.  
Castiel holds the flayed fingers gently, as if they're made of glass. "Let me take you to bed." Crowley doesn't reply, but he doesn't object either, when Castiel lifts him like a bride and lays him down on the pristine sheets. Here in Crowley's bed, the size difference between the creature and his vessel is obvious. Crowley's broken, twisted skeleton and stooping posture has shortened him even beyond what must have been his original stature, and devoid of most of his flesh he is impossibly thin. His genitals have been stripped away, and he cannot lie completely flat on his back due to the deformity of his spine. Still standing, Castiel bends to kiss him again and Crowley's tongue flicks, gently, against Castiel's lips. "I don't like you seeing me like this." Crowley says, flatly. "This... form. I chose this. It's the result of my own decisions. I have no use for self-pity. But..." His hands pet down Castiel's arms. He tilts his head. "When your dear brother got a little too cosy with me, he chose me an outfit - he should sack his personal shopper, by the way. It was intended to humiliate me, but I was glad of it. To have been there, with him, in my own clothes, would have been so much worse." The expressionless swellings of his eyes regard Castiel, imploringly. "Do you understand what I'm saying, angel?"  
Castiel frowns helplessly. "I'm... not sure." He hates to remember what Lucifer did to Crowley. Hates his own hand in allowing it to happen. Hates that Lucifer was wearing Castiel’s own face. "Do you want to stop?" If Crowley doesn't want Castiel to see him in this form, then Castiel will obey.  
_No_. It's spoken quietly. Into Castiel's consciousness. The demon's voice is a brash contrast. "This is... my form, for the deepest pits of Hell. And this..." One arm sweeps the red coverlet, appreciatively. "This is mine. My choice. My safehouse." He gazes at Castiel as he speaks: Castiel wonders if he's simply talking about this bed, this house, any more. "I don't want this form to taint my association of this room. Of you. But I... don't want to stop." One desiccated hand strokes lovingly the length of one of Castiel's broad flight feathers, and Castiel shivers. "I just want you to understand."  
Castiel touches his mouth to Crowley's forehead. "We can continue with your vessel. I'll put my wings away." It isn't worth Crowley feeling this. Castiel can feel it through the link, the wrongness of it. He wants to clear the feeling away like fog, wants to protect Crowley from ever experiencing it again. "You deserve the choice. The safehouse."  
"Perhaps we can... replace those associations with new ones." Crowley's hands are still on his wings, ruffling the thick softness of them and receiving no discernible harm from it. His eyes, bleeding before they ever looked upon an angel, gaze in adoration. "Perhaps you can make a vain devil forget himself for a while."  
  
Castiel wants to go further. He wants to give Crowley such pleasure in this body that he _enjoys_ it. For now, though... "Yes, Crowley." He climbs onto the bed, on his hands and knees over the demon, his wings fluffed out behind him. They're so big, such a wide wingspan that they almost touch the walls off the room when he stretches them out. He trails a hand down Crowley's chest. "Where can I touch you that will bring you pleasure? Show me."  
"I don't..." It's interesting to witness such an expressionless fight for expression while Crowley gropes for a smart answer. _There's nowhere you can touch on this body that will bring me pleasure_. Except, "Anywhere that you touch me will bring me pleasure. It's _you_." Crowley laughs his shipwreck laugh. "I'm built for sin, darling. Literally." His mouth stretches into what might be a smile. It looks strangely shy. "May I touch you?"  
Castiel nods. Takes Crowley's hands in his own and places them on his body. Places his own back on Crowley's torso, mirroring. There is significance, among angels, to the laying on of hands. It reminds Castiel that the intimacy between them is as much spiritual as sexual. _Asperges me hyssop,_ Castiel thinks. Crowley has been scoured with more than hyssop. With hellfire and damnation.  
  
His mannerisms are all the same. So are his words. Castiel wonders about the man Crowley was when he was human. How these little details that carry over are the true reality of who we are, more than bodies or clothes or voices. Crowley's hand rests over Castiel's silent heart. Here, there's no need to keep up the pretence of being alive, in the human sense. _Kiss me_. The demon murmurs, straight to Castiel's essence. This close, in these forms, the thread of smoke stained grace between them throbs, fat and bright.  
Castiel can only give Crowley what he wants. It's different to kissing his vessel - the mouth is little more than a slash in his face, hard and brittle. Castiel is unsure how much Crowley can feel of it, of the softness of Castiel's human mouth, the wetness inside, the muscle of his tongue as it strokes Crowley's lips, tasting the burnt skin. He wants to be tender. Wants to bathe this body in softness.  
Crowley's hands are shockingly gentle. His essence laps, a stormy sea becalmed. It's surprising, from a body that's certainly never known sweetness. Possibly ever before, Castiel thinks. He could lie like this forever. Let aeons pass, let the apocalypse come or be prevented by other beings. While he and Crowley hide and bask in each other, unhurried and sweet. He cups Crowley's cheek. Possibly this is very boring to a demon. He knows Crowley has worlds more carnal experience than him. But Castiel has never had this; this almost-innocent exchange of lazy kisses.  
If Crowley is bored, he doesn't show it. He's silent - no breath, not like his vessel- but Castiel can sense his quiet pleasure, vibrating like a purr. Castiel runs a palm down the jagged bow of Crowley's spine and the purr makes it past Crowley's desiccated lips, an unearthly noise that Castiel finds lovely. "All this attention, pet. I may just stay this way."  
"If you like." Castiel can't quite imagine Dean and Sam's reaction to that. They tend not to understand anything inhuman. It's often frustrated Castiel. He noses at Crowley's neck, sets his teeth there but doesn't bite down.  
Crowley stiffens at the touch of teeth. His hips lift as if he's almost forgotten his current condition. "You really wouldn't care, would you?" He feels, rather than sounds, wondering. Faintly amused. "Strange creature, you are, angel." His essence, now, is almost back to the familiar Crowley that Castiel knows so well. Except for the evidence of his earthly senses.  
"I'm always aware that you're a demon. Even in the vessel." He might not have known the specifics, but Castiel has always known that Crowley's true body would be a product of Hell. Centuries of Hell.  
"Always that whiff of corruption we can't quite hide, eh." His thumbs stroke the dip in the small of Castiel's back. Fingers fan out to graze the edges of feathers. "Not from an angel." He leans up. Leaves behind a charcoal smudge of ash on the pristine white pillowcase. His mouth is an unyielding press against Castiel's throat, but his tongue at least is still soft, damp.  
"I don't want you to hide from me." Castiel gropes, invisibly, for Crowley - sends slivers of himself to grasp at him, like a dozen silver needles pushed just under the skin. He wants to fill Crowley with grace, to leave it leaking out of him.  
"I promise... darling..." A stuttering pause that might have been breathless, in a vessel. "Right now I'm letting it _all_ hang out." His lidless eyes narrow, the flesh cracking, his slash of mouth opening wider. "Cas... Yes... Put it in me."  
  
Castiel seals his mouth over Crowley's, kissing him deep, and _pushes_ with his grace.   It seems to penetrate Crowley somewhere around the chest, where his ribs should be. He arches in Castiel's arms. _Too much?_ Castiel asks, silently. This is only a tiny spill of grace, a fraction of what he wants to put into Crowley.  
_No. More. Slowly, angel. Be gentle._ Crowley inhabits this body - his body - more fully than the vessel. His essence is rooted deeper, permeating the bones of it more completely. Castiel feels him, shifting. Opening himself wider, trusting and expectant.  
Slowly, ever so slowly, Castiel feeds Crowley his grace. It goes in sweet and easy, as if Crowley is holding himself open for it. Almost frictionless, the slide of it. It's an indescribable feeling. Castiel makes a noise like metal against metal; an inhuman noise.  
Crowley's essence is a maelstrom, whipping in peaks. His voice is hesitant. "It feels different. Uncut." _Pure, immediate. Unfiltered by vessel or plane_. Crowley makes a guttural noise, a cut-short exclamation of surprise. His mouth is oozing, sluggish dark blood, running to red.  
Castiel starts in alarm. "I'm sorry-"  
"Don't be." There seems a new level of expression in Crowley's abrasive voice. "It's been a long time since this car crash has bled."  
It's a terrible thing, to enjoy it. To let it feed that dark, possessive part of him that wants to overwrite every harm that has been done to Crowley in Hell. "I- I like it," Castiel confesses, knowing the guilt he's projecting must be suffocating. "I like making you bleed. Forgive me."  
"Always happy to bleed for you, darling." Crowley feels like... Castiel closes his eyes: all of them. _Cartwheeling, tumbling. Clear expanses._ He opens them again. Crowley takes Castiel's right hand in the claw of his own, places it around his left wrist, pinning it to the deep pillows.  
It's so hard to hold back. Everything in Castiel wants to flood Crowley, to fill him so full that it hurts. He takes Crowley's other wrist and pins them both above Crowley's head on the pillow. "Sinful creature," he growls, and realises he's pushing into Crowley's hips, pressing against him, the body working on pure instinct. He shoves another burst of grace into Crowley and hears him cry out. The grace sweeps through Crowley's body - cleansing and scourging, healing. There is too much corruption, too much damage to return his soul to anything like its original state - but there are changes. Small, slow. But observable.  
His skin is still scorched, but - the demon writhes beneath him in delight - newly pliant, the texture of tanned leather rather than cracking to ashes. His shattered limbs move more easily now, looser against the fine sheets. His tongue, still shockingly red and human-looking, wets thin lips that no longer split when he smiles with his jagged mouthful of teeth. "Just call you Marvin Gaye, eh sweetheart?" His voice is still an ugly croak, but there's somehow something more of Crowley's usual nuance to it. He sounds awestruck. "Tell me some more about how _sinful_ I am."  
  
It's remarkable. Castiel hadn't realised... but of course his grace has the potential to heal, as well as to harm. And Castiel's will, his intent, had been full of the desire to protect and treasure Crowley, to bring joy to where there was only suffering. Tentatively, he strokes his fingers down Crowley's throat. His chest. "Can you feel that?"  
" _Yes_." An ecstatic hiss. Crowley narrows his eyes and Castiel sees echoes of his vessel in the mannerism. " _Cas_." His essence is a bright shiver, newly woken nerve endings firing. And perhaps he'll never look human again, but now he feels, strangely... alive.  
Castiel is giddy with the thrill of it. So giddy that perhaps he pushes a bit too hard with the next penetration, puts a little too much into Crowley a little too fast. Bright golden light spills from Crowley's mouth, from his eyes, and his body contorts as if seizing. It's only a second, but it leaves him panting, collapsed in on himself, Castiel stroking his cheek and murmuring fervent apologies as Crowley _clings_. Not just the essence of him: his physical form. Holding too tightly to the angel poised above him, gasping and clutching at Castiel's arms, the bows of his wings. His voice, when he finds it, manages to sound exhausted. And Castiel had thought Crowley's true form would be far more resilient to their activities than his vessel - although perhaps a bout of healing after all this time has taken more out if him than either of them expected. "When I got you into those frilly little knickers, this is the last place I expected to end up, kitten."  
The garment in question is still on Castiel's vessel, albeit rumpled and squashed between them. "Do you regret it?"  
Skeletal fingers caress the back of his neck. Draw him in for a kiss, softer than should be possible. Wet, red eyes regard Castiel, solemnly. "Not a bit of it."  
Castiel takes a clawed hand and lays it on the soft fabric of the underwear. "I'd like to see you in something similar," he murmurs.  
"Would you really?" Crowley's head tilts. His aura blooms a lazy burst of lust. "I may be able to accommodate that. When I'm... fully dressed again, naturally." He squeezes, gently.  
Castiel frowns. "Only in the vessel?" It's a pity. Castiel likes this form, he wants to give it pretty things.  
Crowley casts him a look that seems to say _you're insane_ but he says, "Baby steps, kitten."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's sticking with our self indulgent ramblings about delicious creatures, and extra heapings of <3 to the commenters.
> 
> Smaychel wrote Castiel, TheFierceBeast wrote Crowley.


End file.
